In our final extract from the new book by Max Hastings, Nazi Germany bungles and blunders its way across Ireland

At the outbreak of war, the Germans identified Ireland as fertile soil, and
the British agreed. Late in September 1939 MI6 delivered a luridly
sensationalist report on conditions in Eire, claiming that “an attempt at
revolution by the IRA does not appear to be out of the question”. A
German-owned hotel at Inver in Donegal became a focus of British concern
because Hitler’s embassy staff sometimes stayed there — though so did
British officers, including young Lieutenant Philip Mountbatten RN.

From Berlin’s viewpoint there was little merit in intelligence-gathering
because Ireland harboured no significant military secrets, and there were
only 318